Alone: Orphaned on the Ocean

by Fassbender, Tere Duperrault; Logan PhD, Richard D.

  In addition to ample evidence of suspicious and devious behavior, inconsistent and implausible accounts, and even lies, there is now evidence of a motive to murder – money. And there is additional evidence to bolster Terry Jo’s report of physical violence. Coast Guard investigators concluded that the weight of the circumstantial evidence pointed to Harvey having engaged in a rampage of killing. They believed he left both Terry Jo and her sister below decks to drown. But Terry Jo never saw or heard René below decks. Surely she would have screamed or tried to escape the main bedroom where the water was rising if, in fact, that was where she was. Also, since René was still wearing her life vest, it was likely she was still topside when the killing happened.

  One way to resolve some remaining questions at this great distance in time would be to locate the Bluebelle in the depths of the Providence Channel and resolve, once and for all, any questions of the broken masts and major fire that Harvey claimed. The Bluebelle also could be searched for forensic evidence such as a knife, rifle, human remains, or human artifacts such as jewelry, wristwatches, etc., that might indicate where bodies once lay.

  Concerning bodies, Terry Jo saw her mother and brother in the main cabin, but saw no sign of either her father or Mrs. Harvey. This might mean that the bodies of her father and Dene were in Harvey’s forward cabin. It would make sense that Harvey would want, if possible, all of the bodies to be below decks so that none would float away, possibly to be found in a search.

  It would not be that hard to get a rough idea of where the Bluebelle now rests. Knowing wind speed and direction, and direction of currents at that time in 1961, and knowing especially where Terry Jo was picked up and roughly what time the Bluebelle went down, searchers could reason back to where the yacht most likely sank. Terry Jo’s position would be critical because it was only wind and current that moved her to where she was found.

  Lacking forensic evidence, there might be more that can be gleaned from what is known beyond just inferring that Harvey was a mass killer. But reconstructing what happened is extremely difficult because, by the time the only witness woke up, all of the deaths were long over (with the possible puzzling exception of Terry Jo’s sister). Yet Terry Jo did see two things that speak to Harvey’s state of mind. When Harvey rushed at her, his eye was rolling hideously. Since this tic would occur when Harvey was under great stress, it suggests that he was agitated and acting in desperate haste, not carrying out some cold-blooded and calculated plan.

  Another sign of haste is that Terry Jo saw the sails lying all over the deck. This means that Harvey had simply let them drop suddenly to bring the boat to a stop, and he let them lie because he was desperately occupied with getting ready to flee the Bluebelle. He would have needed the boat to be at a standstill so he could launch the dinghy and raft. This would also be necessary if there was no one to steer the boat.

  The additional fact that Harvey had no shoes when rescued is another telling sign that he acted out of frenzy. It may be possible to infer one more thing: the reason for Harvey’s agitation is that an initial plan that was coldly calculated – to kill only his wife – had blown up on him.

  In order to see if the adult Tere (she changed her name when she was nearly a teenager to escape the “brave little Terry Jo” stigma) could recall any more details from that night that might be helpful, she agreed in 1999 to have sodium amytal administered under the direction of a psychiatrist. Sodium amytal is the latest version of “truth serum,” and is regarded highly by some psychiatrists, not so highly by others. Tere was more than willing to try it because she recognized that her perception – and later recall – of things during the intense trauma of those awful moments might not have been fully accurate, and she might have actually seen things that did not fully register under so much stress. Tere also viewed this as a very important step in telling her story. It could be used not just to try to uncover more information, but also to directly face the question of whether what she testified to was, in fact, the truth. Tere faced this unflinchingly.

  Sodium amytal is a sedative that works by relaxing a patient and, thereby, reducing inhibitions against recalling anxiety-provoking memories. Because it produces such a profound state of relaxation, it is often used in conjunction with hypnosis. Sometimes the subject is so relaxed that they are virtually in a hypnotic state already.

  Tere’s co-author of this book, a developmental psychologist with graduate clinical training, was present during the interview. When Tere was under the amytal, she was amazed at how fully she felt like she was Terry Jo again, “back there” on the Bluebelle and reliving that awful night. Her voice at times even sounded like that of a young girl, in pitch and inflection – the voice of Terry Jo. In this state, the psychiatrist asked her questions about what she saw and heard that night.

  Two things were striking during this interview. First, Tere/ Terry Jo recalled very much the same things to which she testified. The main difference was that she had greater clarity and certainty on some things than during her original testimony. One was that it was indeed a rifle that Harvey held while standing in her doorway; another was that she, indeed, saw a knife along with blood on deck. She was absolutely certain there was no fire, and that the masts and rigging were intact. Her certainty about masts and rigging make the conclusion that there was no tragic accident all the more certain, too.

  Second, Tere did recall a number of additional details that help to clarify the events of that night. (Not all of them came directly from the amytal interview; some emerged later.) She was able to recall that her mother was lying dead in her day clothes, not her pajamas, meaning that she must have been topside when the killing started. Brian, however, was in his pajamas, meaning he had come below to retire in his main cabin bunk. His screams, then, might not have been because he was being attacked, but rather that he saw his mother under attack and called for his father, whom he could not have known was probably already dead.

  Tere also realized that the sound of splashing water she heard wasn’t from the captain washing blood off the deck, but rather from water rushing into the boat from valves that had been opened in the engine room hull. Those valves must have been opened in the moments immediately after Terry Jo’s mother and brother had been killed. This scenario is made more likely by this fact: the interior wall of Terry Jo’s sleeping cabin was actually a lattice screen that could be removed, if needed, in order to gain access to the engine room from that side.

  Under sodium amytal, Tere remembered that when she returned to her berth after being shoved back by Harvey, she could make out that the light in the engine room had been turned on. This could only have happened if Harvey was just there, immediately after he had killed the two in the cabin and while Terry Jo was sitting stunned, afraid, and confused on her berth.

  Since the main entrance to the engine room was on the other side of the room from Terry Jo, it is entirely possible that she would not have heard him enter it. The only reason Harvey could have had to enter the engine room just then would have been to open valves to sink the boat. (He may have opened valves in the forward hull before that.)

  When she was originally interrogated, Terry Jo had said that she heard “the engine running that night.” As a result of the amytal interview she realized that the sound she heard that night decades ago was not, in fact, quite like the heavy pulsing sound of a piston engine but rather the lighter, whirring sound of an electric motor – the motor or motors of bilge pumps, perhaps. The smell of oil coinciding with what she first thought was the engine sound means that the bilge was filling up with water. The pump was running full time, its switches thrown by the rising floats designed to trip them. And it was right after hearing that “engine” sound that she noticed the water rising in her cabin.

  It was only since the amytal interview that Tere had come to realize another important thing: that that hammering sound she heard shortly after Harvey left her doorway was too irregular to be “hammering” but actually was the uniquely hollow, vaguely d
rum-like sound that a small, light dinghy makes when it bangs randomly against the side of a boat. This meant that Harvey launched the dinghy right after he went up, right after standing in her doorway.

  One final thing Tere recalled is that the “pail” she originally said she saw Harvey carrying on deck the first time she was there never did exactly look like a pail; it now looked to her mind’s eye more like a gas can. This reinforces the view that the Gulf Lion crewman saw a sinking gas can.

  It is possible that René was already below decks, asleep, when the killing began, but not likely. She would have had to have slept through the same commotion that woke her sister, and then remained in the main bedroom beyond the main cabin while the boat filled with water. Surely, wouldn’t she have begun to scream at some point, or try to escape?

  Terry Jo had also reported that René was in the cockpit wearing her life preserver when she went to bed that night, and René was wearing a life preserver when she was found with Harvey. It doesn’t seem likely that Harvey would have somehow put a life preserver on her in the timeframe with which he had to work. The most likely scenario then is that René was topside with her mother and father.

  René must already have been dead somehow and in the dinghy when Harvey handed Terry Jo the line. When it slipped out of Terry Jo’s hands, he immediately dived in after it and disappeared into the darkness indicating, perhaps, that he had already placed René’s dead body in the dinghy. It is, of course, possible that he did find her body in the water, but the area was pitch black the instant the Bluebelle went under as its lights shorted out.

  Terry Jo had to be only yards away initially, just on the other side of where the Bluebelle had been. Terry Jo said she saw nothing, and heard nothing – no splashes such as those that might have been made by Harvey retrieving a floating body, or paddling around searching, and most importantly, no flashlight beams from the flashlight that Harvey had when he was picked up by the Gulf Lion – especially if he “circled” around where the boat had gone down. If he had circled, he likely would either have run into Terry Jo, or been seen or heard by her.

  He likely did not search at all; he didn’t even remain there. He hoisted sail right away and headed off in a predetermined direction. He did not then use the motor, because Terry Jo heard no such sound; plus it would have been hard to mount a motor in the dark. Also, if there were light winds, he could have sailed somewhat successfully towing the raft.

  Why would Harvey, surprised by Terry Jo’s reappearance on the deck of the sinking boat, hand her the line to the only means of saving his own life, the dinghy, when only seconds remained before the sailboat would be gone? Clearly he did not intend to take her with him and save her, as he had only minutes before left her below. The only reason he would have paused is that he intended to take a few seconds to grab some kind of weapon and kill her after all. Since she was no longer trapped below decks on a sinking boat, he decided in that split second to make absolutely certain that she would not survive. (This might be one source of his anxious questions about survivors.) He had been certain up to then that she would drown, trapped below decks in the sinking Bluebelle. When Terry Jo let the line to Harvey’s means of escape slip away, it caused him to jump after the dinghy and, thus, saved her life yet one more time during that nightmare night.

  Once Harvey got to the dinghy and turned and saw that the Bluebelle was gone, and all was silent, it is conceivable that he simply told himself that he had had no reason to worry after all because, below decks or not, and with no lifejacket, Terry Jo could not possibly survive for long in the water – if she hadn’t drowned already, possibly tangled in the rigging or lines of the sinking ship. So he simply told himself to carry on with his escape.

  The fact that Harvey had René’s body with him tells two things: First, he intended to be picked up, otherwise why would he have kept René’s body; second, he had to be absolutely confident that an autopsy would find that she died of drowning. The only conclusion then is that Harvey either knew she had drowned accidentally (hard to imagine in a mass killing scenario, unless she had been flung overboard by her mother in an instant of desperation to save her from the knife-wielding Harvey, in which case he could in fact happen to find her floating face down later); or perhaps she was knocked unconscious when Harvey came after her mother and (grim to contemplate) he drowned her at some point later, holding her head under water.

  Here is a brief outline of how things might have happened based on all that is known (and deduced):

  • Harvey, intending to kill his wife for the insurance and, therefore, wanting to make it look accidental, attempts neatly and quietly to kill – likely stab – his wife that night in the seclusion of their cabin, having left Dr. Duperrault at the helm, with his wife and younger daughter in the cockpit. His plan is to kill Dene, weigh down her body, surreptitiously slide her overboard when no one else is around, then come back to spend the rest of the night at the helm. In the morning he would go to their cabin and discover that she is “missing,” somehow having fallen overboard during the night. His attempt goes awry and there is an altercation as Dene desperately fights, unsuccessfully, for her life – thus the scratches on Harvey.

  • Arthur Duperrault hears the sound of the fight and rushes forward, only to confront a knife-wielding Harvey who quickly stabs him, killing him on the forward deck.

  • Jean Duperrault rushes toward her husband, only to have Harvey turn on her. She rushes back to the cockpit, grabs René to protect her, only to have Harvey stab and wound her (Jean). In the process René was clubbed or falls and hits hard on her head. Meanwhile a wounded Jean Duperrault staggers or falls down into the main cabin. An agitated Harvey, his calculated plan in shambles, now knows only three things: that he has to eliminate witnesses, sink the boat to bury all evidence, and get away.

  • The sound of his mother falling into the cabin, followed by a seemingly crazed Harvey – worked up by his orgy of killing – awakens young Brian. He screams for his father, having no idea that he is already dead.

  • The commotion awakens Terry Jo, but she stays silent and frozen in her cabin for several minutes.

  • Harvey quickly stabs Brian, and he falls next to his dead mother, their blood pooling on one side of the cabin floor, because the ship is tilting with no one at the helm.

  • Harvey then quickly opens the entry to the engine room on the galley side of the boat, turns on the light, and hastily opens sea valves to begin to scuttle the boat. This is not especially noisy since he doesn’t need to hammer holes in the hull or anything like that, and Terry Jo does not hear him. She also doesn’t yet consciously observe that the light is dimly shining through the lattice screen wall on her side of the engine room.

  • Harvey goes back topside to organize supplies for the raft and dinghy, both fixed to the top of the main cabin, and prepares to abandon the boat. He quickly drops the sails so that the boat is dead in the water, even though winds are fairly calm. He then throws Dr. Duperrault’s body into the forward cabin, where Dene’s body already is. (In the alternative, Dr. Duperrault’s body may have fallen overboard in their struggle.) Harvey doesn’t want to have any bodies float away as possible evidence if he can help it. He might also open valves in the forward cabin hull at this time. He is agitated now, doing all of this quickly and desperately. He won’t have time to put on shoes. (The fact that he has no shoes does make it slightly more likely that he was in his own forward cabin when everything began – and quickly spun out of control.)

  • As Harvey is feverishly pulling stuff together to leave, Terry Jo goes up into the cockpit after the shock of seeing her mother and brother below. She sees a knife and blood in the cockpit, and sails lying all over. She also catches Harvey in mid-preparation to leave, carrying a can of gas to put in the dinghy.

  • Harvey, his eye rolling, pushes Terry Jo back down, and she returns in numb terror to her bunk and huddles for many minutes.

  • Terry Jo hears the “hammering sound” that means
that the dinghy has been launched and is banging into the boat, not that Harvey is banging holes in the hull. She also hears the sound of water splashing and “the engine running,” which is actually the sound of the bilge pump. The two sounds together, plus the smell of oil, mean that water is rushing into the boat.

  • Harvey goes below to retrieve the Duperraults’ .22-caliber rifle from a main bedroom locker, and possibly looks quickly for any cash to grab.

  • He then goes to Terry Jo’s cabin, contemplates killing her, but decides she will drown anyway, and leaves.

  • Terry Jo waits until water is waist deep then goes topside, only to be handed the dinghy line by Harvey. The captain is within seconds of fleeing the sinking boat, having loaded the dinghy and raft with supplies, including motor and gas.

  • Terry Jo drops the line, Harvey dives off, and Terry Jo heads for the float and toward a new life.

  There is, however, a very different scenario that just might be possible: a Miami detective familiar with Harvey and his habits discounted the insurance-money motive for the Bluebelle killings. He was one of the detectives following up rumors about “Sinking, Inc.” and the involvement of known Harvey associates in smuggling in and out of Cuba. He claimed to have uncovered clues that convinced him that the mass killing on the Bluebelle happened when Harvey rendezvoused with another boat in the dead of night to pick up a load of narcotics or other contraband he intended to smuggle into Florida.

  Shortly before midnight on the fatal night, the detective believed, the Bluebelle sent out a radio call giving her position. He claimed to have received this information from a ham operator in the Bahamas, but the Coast Guard said it was unable to confirm any such call.